Sacramento Man Goes After Yreka

But is foiled:

A police officer and two civilians subdued an armed man who drove to a California probation office with 11 crude bombs, 70 loaded magazines and more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition, police said.

Michael Solano, 54, went to a California probation office with bombs and other weapons, police said.

"This guy was ready for war," Yreka Police Chief Brian Bowles said in a written statement. "We were very lucky this guy was stopped and nobody was killed yesterday."

The incident occurred Tuesday afternoon, when people saw Solano acting suspiciously near the Siskiyou County Probation Department and called police, Bowles said.

Solano aimed a gun at an officer, police said. Two civilians then jumped into the fray and, with the officer, subdued Solano and wrestled the gun away, police said.

During the scuffle, Solano repeated that he wanted to be killed and reached for the officer's gun and Taser stun gun, Bowles said.

Solano was handcuffed and searched. Police found a pipe bomb in his shoe, Bowles said. A neighborhood near the probation office was evacuated after Solano told police that he had 10 bombs in his car parked nearby, authorities said.

The bombs were "fragmentation grenades," loaded with nails and BBs, Bowles said. In all, police discovered 70 loaded magazines, more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition, one stolen pistol and two assault weapons. They also found in Solano's car three other weapons, including one with a silencer, surveillance equipment, a tactical vest and clothing with face masks, Bowles said.

...Bowles thanked Brett Duncan and and Darrell Bourne of Yreka, who he said helped subdue Solano.

"We are lucky that the quick response from officers and help from the citizens saved us from a very serious incident," he said.

Trying To Keep Ahold Of The Rural Ways

Political correctness runs amok in Thetford Mines, Quebec. Too bad, too. We are in danger of forgetting our rural roots. These folks tried to reintroduce urban folks back to the ways of the farm. Replacement pasttimes that might pass the political correctness test, like computer games, seem pretty tepid in comparison:

[The Thetford Chicken Massacre] has been taking place for several years on Labour Day when about a hundred people gather to watch decapitated chickens and turkeys flop around on a grid painted on the ground.

The animal rights group PETA wants to put an end to a tradition in the eastern Quebec town of Thetford Mines known as the 'Chicken Massacre.' Every year, a hundred people gather to watch decapitated chickens and turkeys flop around on a grid painted on the ground.

Participants bet in advance on which of the grid's squares the body will come to rest after the head is cut off. Driven by nerve impulses, poultry often run around frenziedly for several minutes after decapitation.

Protests arose after participants posted on the Internet a video of people laughing while decapitated chickens hopped around, as well as photos of past events on Facebook. The web pages were shut down Tuesday.

The U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called the activity "redneck" and "gratuitously cruel."

"You don't torture animals just to have fun," said Kristin DeJournett, spokeswoman for PETA. She said she was especially shocked to see spectators betting on the imminent death of animals.

"They are profiting off the exploitation and possible suffering of these animals," DeJournett charged.

She said the activity could violate section 446 of the Canadian Criminal Code, dealing with animal cruelty. But the Quebec provincial police said Tuesday no one has lodged a complaint.

Dr. Gaston Dorval, who hosts the party for his sons at his cottage every year, was adamant they are not torturing the poultry. He said the heads of the animals are clearly severed and that it is the fastest way to kill them.

"If this is torture, then we should close all slaughterhouses in Quebec," Dorval said from his gynecology clinic in Thetford Mines, about 230 kilometres east of Montreal. "They cut the chicken's throat and let them bleed to death. That's much more painful, but you don't see it."

..."It started out with people who came from the big cities and had never seen a headless chicken run. They wanted to see it to believe it," Dorval explained.

..."Our society is hypocritical," Dorval said. "People don't want to see how animals are killed. But I have news for them, the meat doesn't appear in their plate miraculously, you have to kill the animal."

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Customer Scorned

At Jerry's suggestion I'm pulling this post down. If I had personally been affronted by this merchant, that might be one thing, but I'm simply repeating hearsay, and have no evidence other than the posted flyer. Like they say, there are two sides to every story.

Not that I feel obligated to report the other side of the story - it's just that I don't have it.

Sparky Out Of Sorts

Sparky's been feeling ill the last two days. He seems lethargic and he's not eating much. Don't know what that's about. Hope he feels better soon.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Fay Spins And Spins

And looks like it might just graze Tampa....

Satan's Olympics Volleyball

Don't watch the tube! You-know-who established the dress code!:

Freehold, Iowa - Behind the locked doors of America's Christian bedrooms, young boys are getting swept up in a disturbing trend. "I had a frantic mother come to me the other day in tears," said Pastor Deacon Fred. "She told me that her son, Timothy, invited several of his friends over into his bedroom for private prayer and devotional scripture studies. What she told me next is enough to send shivers down the spine of every God fearing mother and father in our Christian Nation! Satan is in our midst, my friends! The Devil is using Olympics volleyball to lure young men into shedding their clothes, flopping around and falling off off their beds with him into the pit of iniquity.

Cake Wrecks

Oh, this is fun!: a blog devoted to cakes gone awry...

Grafton, Wisconsin Gets Serious About Crime

No more of this molly-coddling (and the dragnet catches others as well):

[Heidi Dalibor], 20, was arrested earlier this month in connection with a pair of books overdue for several months. Dalibor, who made the mistake of ignoring a court citation issued after she failed to respond to letters and phone calls from the Grafton library, was busted August 6 for failing to return copies of Janet Fitch's best-seller "White Oleander" (a 1999 Oprah Book Club selection) and "Angels & Demons," author Dan Brown's precursor to "The Da Vinci Code."

Plus others:

• Theresa Sinner: Theresa Sinner's overdue material consists of one book, "Running With Scissors."
• Kevin Pipkorn: Kevin Pipkorn's overdue material consists of one CD, "Jailbreak."

Oprah?



DMTC's Chris Petersen says my feminine look from "La Cage Aux Folles" reminds him of Oprah.

Oprah?

OPRAH?

WTF?

Plus, several people are just now, months after the fact, finally confessing to me what they thought about my feminine look in "La Cage Aux Folles". No doubt, they are prompted by DMTC's 2008 Elly Award nomination for Best Overall Production.

And no, Chris, "fugly" is not in the dictionary....

Yes, the road of fashion can be hard....

The key to winning the Elly actually hinges on the judge-bewitching properties of Darryl Clark's elegant, androgynous legs. They are our light sabers for fighting back the RSP onslaught (three nominated shows!)

God Save The Hairy Mexicans...

Left: Bao Xishun, right, shakes hand with He Pingping.


...Because, without the hairy Mexicans, China would rule the Earth:

Inner Mongolian goat herder Bao Xishun has regained the title as the world's tallest living man after the holder of the record, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, refused to submit to an official measurement.

Guinness World Records (GWR) released a statement overnight announcing that Bao - who measures 2.36 metres (7 feet 9.5 inches) - won on a technicality after Stadnyk refused to submit to being measured by GWR officials.

Stadnyk, who lives with his mother in central Ukraine, is more than 20cm (8 inches) taller than Bao at 2.57 metres (8 feet 5.5 inches), according to a statement from his doctor tendered last year.

...Bao often makes celebrity appearances and in 2006 he was hailed as a hero after he used his long arm to reach down the throats of two dolphins to remove plastic bags they had swallowed.

Last year Bao married a 1.68 metre-tall (5 feet 6 inches) woman and the couple are expecting their first child later this year.

What was not mentioned in today's China Daily story, however, is that - according to the Guinness Book of Records - China is also home to the world's shortest man.

He Ping Ping, who measures 74.61cm (2 foot 5.37 inches) under the new guidelines, will be also included in the 2009 edition of the book.

China just falls short of being able to claim a unique trifecta. Yu Zhenhuan, who suffers from a condition known as hypertrichosis (also called Werewolf Syndrome) and has 96 per cent of his body covered in hair, was listed as the world's hairiest man in the 2002 Guinness Book of Records.

But the current record holders are two Mexican brothers, Victor and Gabriel Ramos Gomez, who have 98 per cent of their bodies covered in hair.

Whither Gasoline Prices?

They seemed to have reached an inflection point of some sort, but whether they go up again, or continue down, is quite uncertain:

Crude futures fell as low as $112.61 a barrel early today after the government said U.S. oil inventories last week jumped 9.39 million barrels, to an 11-week high of 305.9 million -- another sign that there’s no shortage of supply.

But prices rebounded later in the session, and the September futures contract closed up 45 cents at $114.98 a barrel, the second straight gain. Oil hasn't been up for two consecutive days since mid-July.

The market got a psychological boost from Goldman, Sachs & Co. after the brokerage’s commodities analysts reiterated their prediction that crude would rebound to $149 a barrel by the end of the year. ... Also, some traders were noting that U.S. gasoline inventories slid for a fourth straight week to the lowest totals since November. Refineries have been operating at relatively low levels, necessitating a drawdown of gasoline stocks. But with the summer driving season ending that hasn’t been worrying the market much.

...Is this the end of the slide? Market bears expect oil demand in the developed world to continue to weaken given the economy’s struggles, and they say that should put additional downward pressure on prices.

Making Traffic Do The Limbo

This sounds a lot like people I know:

Bungling engineers have been left red-faced after building a railway tunnel that's too small for trains to actually fit through.

The costly mistake was only discovered when inspectors measured the finished tunnel in the Polish capital, Warsaw, and realised the roof was so low that no trains would get under it.

Rail bosses claim the mix-up happened because workers who were laying new tracks didn't talk to the team that was building the tunnel.

...The cock-up is the latest in a series of public transport construction fiascoes in Poland.

A tunnel built recently to divert lorry traffic in Warsaw turned out to be too low for lorries.

Last year, the Polish road authority produced plans for two sections of major motorway that would have missed each other by five miles - each coming to a dead end in the middle of the countryside.

Fay Begins Coming Ashore Again

Fay's forward movement is so sluggish that it's a rain menace wherever it hits. Melbourne, FL is going to be a real mess before this is through - it's been raining there, hard, for more than a day. Mercifully, after being lashed all day, Daytona Beach is now in the eye. But rains there could pick up again soon.

Here's more on Melbourne:

The storm could dump 30 inches of rain in some areas of Florida and the National Hurricane Center said up to 22 inches had already fallen near Melbourne, just south of Cape Canaveral on the state's central Atlantic coast.

For the short term, both NOGAPS and GFS models seem to agree that the storm will move slowly across northern Florida. Already the storm seems to be coming ashore again, heading WNW. After that, Fay will then cross over into the Gulf of Mexico and rake the NE Gulf Coast. Such rain as there is should be mostly over in Tampa by Friday evening.

Then the storm will stall again around Mobile, AL and then either head north (NOGAPS) or reverse direction, begin falling apart, and sweep across Alabama, Georgia, and both Carolinas (GFS). The GFS prediction would be a canonical, standard finish to a tropical storm, and I think that's most likely to occur.

Tampa will get rain from Fay on Thursday and Friday, but compared to many other places in Florida, Tampa's experience with this storm will be rather mild.

Spanish Airliner Crash

An MD-82. Very bad.

"Face Off"

I saw 1997's "Face Off" on DVD on Tuesday (just the latest info here on Marc Valdez Weblog....)

Lots of terrorist fun, with lot's of stuff blowing up, and Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) and Sean Archer (John Travolta) trying to act just like each other. And a good tagline: "To destroy your enemy, you must find him, face him, and then... become him.":

Sean Archer is a very tough, rugged FBI Agent who is still grieving for the dead son Michael. Archer believes that his son's killer is his sworn enemy, a very powerful criminal, Castor Troy. One day, Archer has finally cornered Castor, however, their fight has knocked out Troy cold. As Archer finally breathes easy over the capture of his enemy, he finds out that Troy has planted a bomb that will destroy the entire city of Los Angeles and all of its inhabitants. Unfortunately the only other person who knows its location is Castor's brother Pollux, and he refuses to talk. The solution, a special operation doctor that can cut off people's faces, and can place a person's face onto another person. Archer undergoes one of those surgeries to talk to Pollux. However, Castor Troy somehow regains consciousness and now wants revenge on Archer for taking his face. Not only is Troy ruining Archer's mission, but his personal life as well. Archer must stop Troy again. This time, it's personal.

The script writers were so shameless. Every dramatic contrivance imaginable was used to maximize the tension (Wife is a pawn between her hubby and her worst enemy. Likewise, daughter. Enemy's squeeze has a winning son, and a heart of gold. On and on and on and on.... )

No wonder it was a popular movie!

Felicitous Florida Weather

Fay picked up a bit of strength today from the half of the storm being over the warm waters of the Atlantic, and in response to the lop-sided development, the eye has finally shifted offshore, just north of Cape Canaveral.

Nevertheless, since steering winds will soon start moving again, and move the storm onshore, it is probably too late for the storm to become a hurricane. The storm will move slowly west across northern Florida, dropping lots of rain.

Already, Tampa has seen 0.04 inches this evening (oppressively humid at 100% RH, and overcast too), and it will pick up, as Fay's rain bands bring scattered thundershowers periodically across Tampa over the next two days.

By mid-day Saturday, rains in Tampa will cease, and the storm will push on into Alabama, Mississippi, and either Arkansas, Tennessee, or both, depending how things work out.

So, it looks wet, and wet, but in regards to wind, not that bad.

D&D Prepares People For The Military

Annoyed veteran (and D&D player) Robert Mackey slams Michael Goldfarb's assertion that war gamers (like, perhaps those in Obama's camp) are too geeky to be trusted with the military.

(Judging from my high school friends, D&D players are actually more likely than most to become responsible soldiers):

Well, as anyone with half a brain should know, not all D&D players live in their parents' basement. Some live upstairs.

And others, the vast majority of them, became doctors, lawyers, excelled in business, the arts, and even politics. And a more than a few of them put on the uniform and stand by the colors. And more than a few of them have come back from the very wars that men like Mr. Goldfarb have sent them covered in the colors, the same colors that are given to grieving mothers, wives, and girlfriends.

Yes, Mr. Goldfarb, I play Dungeons and Dragons. And I have, in my home, a very large box filled with medals and decorations that prove my service to this nation. Where were you, sir, when your country called? Oh yes, writing for the Weekly Standard.

Shoplifting Does Not Pay

Hide-and-seek:

The Eaton County sheriff's department said two women fled a Lansing-area TJ Maxx discount store after spraying a security guard with Mace. A deputy found one of the women behind a nearby trash compactor.

Deputies say the woman wouldn't say where the other woman was hiding.

Shortly afterward, authorities got a call about a woman trapped in the trash compactor. Tyree Monique Tate of Delta Township was pulled from the machine by rescuers and taken to a hospital, where the 26-year-old later died.

Things To Avoid During Tropical Storms



A man is thrown across a Miami, Florida, beach while kite surfing during Tropical Storm Fay.